UKIP’s Nigel Farage claims ‘perverse’ Labour win in Oldham West by-election

Britain’s opposition Labour Party won a parliamentary seat in northern England today, a relief to the party’s new leader, Jeremy Corbyn, in his first electoral test.

Labour candidate Jim McMahon – who branded Ukip supporters “rejects” a year ago – beat the Eurosceptic party’s candidate John Bickley.

The leader of UKIP Nigel Farage just slammed the Labour party’s Oldham West and Royton by-election result as “perverse” and blamed vote rigging and non-English speaking immigrants for his party losing the election.

That echoes comments made yesterday by Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk, who told Sky News that Mr Corbyn’s “name came up not in a very good way when I was knocking on doors”.

He said Oldham West and Royton was a “different type of constituency with different demographics” in a “very strong Labour heartland”.

Labour won the vote in Oldham West and Royton, triggered by the death of the incumbent MP, with more than 17,000 votes. However, just as it was always mistaken during the many years that Ukip was thought to be exclusively a drag on the Conservatives, the idea that Ukip is only an existential threat to Labour in the north has perhaps also been overcooked.

Momentum has denied it is pushing for MPs who disagree with Mr Corbyn on Syria and other issues to be deselected in the run-up to the next election although Mr Livingstone, who is a Momentum member, has said some MPs could find themselves being ousted for undermining the leadership.

The Ukip leader said his party would file a formal complaint about what he described as “abuses” of the postal vote system in the Greater Manchester seat.

And he said: “The sooner we kick the Tories out and get a Labour government back in the better for all of us”.

Political scientist John Curtice said Labour’s win was “nothing exceptional”, adding that the rise in its share of the vote was in line with by-election increases during the last parliament in 2010-2015. But even if Corbyn may not have been the key figure in persuading Oldham to vote Labour, his perceived toxicity among white, working-class voters was not strong enough to drive them into the arms of Ukip. “The hard work starts now”.

But Labour candidate Jim McMahon has brushed aside the claim that Mr Corbyn has damaged his chances of winning in the Labour stronghold.

‘That would make it fair again. Ukip would do well to cut the Tory vote in half but I doubt that it will win them all.

He also said the result was “staggering” for Labour. “That would make polling day actually mean something”.

Tory candidate James Daly was third with 2,596 votes, while the Lib Dems lost their deposit after Jane Brophy only managed to secure 1,024 votes.